Meet Israel's Only Friend: Geert Wilders

From the Jerusalem Post, this interview with the Dutch MP:

Geert Wilders, who is demanding a halt to immigration from Muslim countries as the centerpiece of his campaign for the Dutch prime ministership, has hailed Israel for “fighting the jihad” and warned that “the West is next” if Israel is unsuccessful.

“Israel is the canary in the coal mine,” Wilders said in a recent telephone interview with The Jerusalem Post, ahead of Wednesday’s elections in the Netherlands. “The jihad against Israel isn’t against Israel only. It’s against the whole West.”

A year ago, Wilders’s PVV (Party for Freedom) was scoring 28 percent in opinion polls and appeared to have a realistic prospect of winning the elections. It has declined since then, however, he said, as economic issues have become increasingly dominant.

“There’s not a big chance that I’ll become prime minister,” he said.

Nonetheless, the PVV is expected to double its current nine seats in the 150-member parliament, and front-runner Mark Rutte, of the People’s Party for Freedom of Democracy (VVD), said this week that he was not ruling out Wilders’s party as a coalition partner.